


Heroes Get Remembered

by justfandomwritings



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky Barnes & Peggy Carter Friendship, Character Death, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt Steve Rogers, Minor Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, POV Third Person, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-World War II Bucky Barnes, Pre-World War II Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers & Sam Wilson Friendship, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-02-10 01:15:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18649942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justfandomwritings/pseuds/justfandomwritings
Summary: "Heroes get remembered, but legends never die." Bucky read the words, but he couldn't process them. Hero? Legend? Bucky wasn't either of those things. Those words were reserved for generals, warriors, doctors... a little punk from Brooklyn in stripey tights who didn't know when to give up... and a young nurse who threw herself in a warzone to save the ones she loved.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This was an idea I had for a story about two years ago, but I didn't like the way it turned out, so I've since decided to rewrite it and try again. Last time, I think the tone just didn't jive well with the plot of the story and it was a real short coming. It made the whole thing rather lack cohesion, so this is take two with a very different tone.
> 
> Let me know how it works out this time.

_November 2014_

Steve Rogers had only cried four times in his life. The first time had been when his mother died. For as long as Steve could remember, she had worked in a nursing ward treating tuberculosis patients. Helping those who couldn't help themselves, she used to say. Even after she contracted the disease, she tried to help those who stood a better chance than herself. It was Bucky who'd been the one to give him the news when she died, and he cried. How long, he couldn't remember; but he remembered picking himself up and putting on a brave face. He remembered walking to the funeral and smiling pleasantly as he shook hands with those who wished him well. He remembered pretending to be fine until eventually he was.

The second time was worse. When Bucky died, or when he thought he'd died. Unlike his mother, Steve had watched Bucky go. He'd been so close. A second more and he could have saved him. An inch longer reach and Bucky would have been fine. His mother died of disease, but Bucky died under  _His_  command, in  _His_  unit, on  _His_  mission, before  _His_  very eyes. Steve blamed himself for a very long time. Part of him still did. His crying over Bucky hadn't truly stopped until he plunged into the ice. There was no pretending to be fine when you watched your best friend die, when you were constantly thinking of all the things you could have done to save him.

The third time he'd cried was when they pulled him out of the ice. When they'd thawed him out and introduced him to this new world, this new future, and he realized just how much more he had to lose. He thought he'd lost everything the day he'd lost Bucky, but clearly he'd been wrong. Nick Fury had given him a brief rundown of the last seventy years that lasted all of thirty minutes before dropping him off in an apartment across town. The moment the door closed and he found himself alone, Steve collapsed into sobs. Everyone he'd ever known was dead; everything he'd ever known was gone. He was truly, truly alone. He had nothing and no one.

At least, that's what he'd thought. The fourth time Steve cried was when he realized that was wrong. The night after he'd ripped off the Winter Soldier's mask and seen his old friend. The night after the Winter Soldier had asked him, "Who's Bucky?". It was like losing him all over again. It was like losing everything all over again.

No, it was worse. Before that moment, Steve had no one, nothing. He had no hope, and he was forced to move on. Now, there was something. He was clinging to it like it was his lifeline, and though it may never float he would sink or swim with this one idea. Some part of his past, some part of Bucky, was alive, and he was going to find it or die trying.

"Cap," Sam interrupted the soldier's train of thought, joining the soldier in the living room. His tone was hesitant, probing. "You okay?"

Steve chuckled, still a little dazed. "Do I look okay?"

"No," Sam dropped down into a plush armchair across from Steve and leaned forward on his knees. "You look like hell, which is still probably twice as good as you're feeling."

Steve's gaze fell to the floor. Sam was right; he felt awful. He didn't sleep; he didn't eat. Most days, Steve felt like he didn't really breath either. It wasn't just the physical exhaustion. It was the sheer emotional desperation. Steve was feeling utterly useless, yet he wouldn't stop. He couldn't stop. Even if all hope was lost, Steve had to keep searching. They could have laid Bucky's dead body at his feet, and Steve would have stepped over it with a simple "I thought he was dead once" and kept looking. Bucky never gave up on Steve, and Steve would never give up on Bucky. If he gave up on Bucky, he might as well give up on everything.

"Hey," Sam leaned forward and clapped the Captain firmly on the shoulder. "We knew this wasn't going to be easy. We just have to keep trying."

Sam definitely understood, more than most. He knew the lengths he himself would go to if he found out Riley was still alive. They hadn't even reached that point yet. Let alone what Sam imagined if he added in childhood best friends and his only tie to his real home. A guy like Steve, Sam wouldn't blame him for moving the world to bring his friend home.

"I just…" Steve looked up, eyes so bleary from lack of sleep that he couldn't quite see straight. "I just want to understand. He remembered. I saw it in his eyes. He remembered me. So why is he running from me? Why is he going to…" Steve waved his hand at the map. The map sat on the table in the corner, a permanent fixture of the room since SHIELD had fallen. "To these places. It doesn't make any sense."

They'd both been wondering that. Sam eyed the offending paper suspiciously. It was massive, covering the entire length of the dining table in the Avengers' apartment. Even from the other side of the room, Sam could see every detail, not that he needed the reminder. Steve and Sam had spent hours upon hours pouring over the damn thing trying to find some rhyme or reason to it but getting absolutely nowhere. The map was peppered in tiny little x's: a few each in America, Russia, Europe, one each in Brazil, Mexico, Canada, Egypt. They knew exactly where he'd been, but they had no idea why and no idea where he was going.

"I don't know Steve," Sam sighed and slumped back. "Maybe he's… going back to what he remembers, or maybe looking for something." Neither was a new idea; Sam was really only trying to fill the air. They'd discussed both possibilities before. They discussed every possibility before, and none seemed to fit.

The Hydra files Natasha had leaked gave a detailed timeline of the Winter Soldier's activities, even though they weren't always documented by name. The Soldier had been making and changing history since Steve had gone under the ice. Assassinations, saves, fires, rebellions. He seemed to have a hand in everything that had led up to this moment, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. He had shaped the decades Steve had missed and made the world he saw today.

The x's on the map weren't his missions. There were seemingly too many of those to count. Stark had made a list and tried to show it to Steve, tried to make him see the soldier he was hunting rather than the old friend he wanted to find. Steve was having none of it. Every time someone brought up what the Winter Soldier had done, Steve had walked away. His friend wouldn't do those things, and when he first laid eyes on the Winter Soldier he hadn't seen his friend. He did eventually though. As the Helicarrier fell, he finally saw Bucky, and he was determined to see him again. He only wanted to find  _him_ , his last piece of home. He had no interest in the Winter Soldier, no interest in Hydra's ultimate weapon. He had no interest in what the Winter Soldier had done, and he wasn't going to subject himself to thinking about it.

The x's were sightings. All around the world people claimed to see the Winter Soldier, and Steve exhausted himself investigating every last one. A week after the collapse of SHIELD there had been nearly fifty, and eventually he'd managed to confirm four.

He hadn't been sure at first, but when he saw the fifth one he knew what was happening. Four empty Hydra bases, abandoned sometime before SHIELD but Steve couldn't be sure when, and each of them had been trashed. The first was a storage facility, hard copies of documents that were too sensitive to be committed to digital memory. Every drawer had been opened, every file torn apart, every desk ransacked. The second was a recruiting office in a similar state followed by two armories, but the fifth was the worst.

The fifth sighting was what led Steve to confirm the previous four. It had taken him deep into the mountains in Russia. A fully active Hydra lab. Its location was buried deep in the lists Nat had published, but no government had gotten around to checking it out until Steve heard whispers the Soldier had been there. Steve and Sam hopped on one of Tony's jets that night, but by the time they got there he was gone. Everything was gone.

For some reason, the place was entirely destroyed. The site was still smoldering when they arrived; anything that hadn't been personally destroyed had been engulfed in flames. There weren't even remnants of a clue as to what was going on in that building. The charred desks stood ajar. File cabinets were all empty. Every liquid, compound, and vile in the facility had been smashed on the floor and evaporated in the heat. What few computers remained had all had their memory stolen. All the lab's complex machinery was broken down to its most basic parts; nuts and bolts and bits of metal that even Tony Stark couldn't piece together as anything worth destroying.

All that was left to remember it were four bodies scattered outside. They were presumed to be the scientists manning the facility, but there was nothing to identify them by. Their prints were all scared or removed. Their teeth knocked in. Their bodies left to the elements, the snow and wind and animals, so long that their faces were unrecognizable. DNA had been the only hope, and nothing had come close to a match. Whoever they were, they were ghosts, and someone wanted to make sure they stayed that way.

It was then that Steve had realized it was Bucky, or at least the Winter Soldier with whatever was left of his friend. While Steve was on a mission to find him, he was on a mission of his own. To do what? For who? Why? Steve didn't know, but Bucky wasn't just hitting random Hydra facilities. He was up to something, and he didn't want anyone, Shield or Hydra or the Avengers, to know what it was.

Six more sightings followed mirroring the first four, and Steve and Sam were forced to resign themselves to collecting whatever was salvageable to bring back to New York for analysis. Stark had helped, but even then they'd found nothing. Whatever his mission was, Bucky had done a good job of hiding it. Sam and Steve had no idea what to do or where to go.

"Well, well, well, my fine feathered friend," Steve and Sam jolted up as Tony Stark came sauntering into the Avengers' apartments. He was flanked by Natasha and Bruce, who both looked just as unamused as Steve felt. "Close but no cigar."

"You have something?" Sam said it in a tone he only hoped would convey how much he really was not in the mood for the billionaire's usual attitude. He'd just spent the last 36 hours helping Steve loot through an abandoned science lab in the Czech Republic, and all they'd turned up were paper copies of drug inventories and a broken computer. Sam wanted a nap… a twelve-hour nap… and some food.

"Not something," Tony pointed out, whipping out the folder behind his back and waving it like he'd won some kind of prize, "Someone."

"Pardon?" Steve half-heartedly prompted.

The three newcomers wandered over to join them, and Tony dropped the folder in Sam's lap as he passed. "He's not looking for something. He's looking for someone."

"How do you know this?" That finally got the Captain sitting up a little straighter in his seat.

"Never," Tony poked at him, "tell me I can't fix something."

Sam flipped open the folder in his lap and started scanning the title page. "You got this off that old piece of junk we brought in today?"

"Yep," Tony responded smugly. "Just took a little digging. It wasn't actually in that bad of shape. Your best buddy took great care to wipe it of all the important things, but it just made it pretty obvious what I needed to be looking for when I opened it up."

"So he's after someone then," Steve mused and concentrated thinking. "An old Hydra agent? One of their scientists?"

Sam blanched as he turned the page in the file. "Oh, he's not after just anyone…" He set the file down and slid it across to Steve. "And she's definitely not a Hydra agent."

Steve bent down to pick up the file, but before his fingers could even scoop it up his eyes caught the picture in the corner.

Why did the room suddenly get so hot? Was it just him? His hand hung limp an inch above the paper, and it was shaking uncontrollably fast. There was a burning feeling in his chest, and he could practically feel his body rushing with sudden adrenaline.

In the distance, barely registering at the back of Steve's consciousness, he heard Tony asking Sam. "You know her?"

No, he wanted to say, but he couldn't form the word. Sam didn't know her. Steve had thought he never would. She was a world away, a lifetime away.

With trembling fingers, Steve reached into the pocket of his jacket for the picture he carried with him at all times. It was black and white and 70 years old, but Steve remembered every colorful detail like it was yesterday. It was the happiest day of Steve's life.

In the left of the frame was Bucky, the old Bucky. Before the Winter Soldier, before the metal arm, before Hydra, before the war. He was the Bucky girls would throw themselves on their knees in front of begging for a dance. He was the Bucky guys looked on with envy as he raised his fist and bounced around the boxing ring in triumph. Everyone loved Bucky; everyone wanted to be Bucky. Even in the photo, he was cracking everyone up with another joke. The smile on his face back then could light up any room he walked into. He looked happy, healthy. He was the Bucky Steve remembered.

To the right was Steve, pre-serum Steve. He looked like a different person; he'd felt like a different person. He was short and very thin. He looked sickly and pale, but he was laughing, Bucky's doing. Girls didn't fawn over him back then the way they had with Bucky, or Steve after. Guys didn't give him a second glance except to try to beat him into submission. That Steve only had one friend, and yet it was as content as Steve ever remembered being. He had everything he'd ever wanted and needed. He was happy.

There, in the middle, between Bucky and Steve was a girl. She was about the same height as Steve. Her hair fell loose around her face in long curls that he remembered to be blonde. Her arms were thrown haphazardly around both boys, and the photo was taken with her mouth smiling wide at Bucky's joke. Her eyes squinted with humor, but Steve could still see the bright twinkle behind her lashes. She was beautiful, more beautiful than the girls who fell at Bucky's feet or threw a cold shoulder Steve's direction. She was a true diamond in the rough. People flocked to her like moths to a flame. It was as much her heart and her spirit as her looks. She was the purest, kindest soul Steve had met in any generation. When she walked into a room, people turned. Her presence demanded attention, respect. People often questioned if even Bucky, with all his looks and charm and talents, was worthy of a girl like her.

"Who is she then?" Tony asked Sam.

Steve dropped the picture from his hand down next to the one in the file and slid it back to Stark. "He's looking for my sister."

That night was the fifth time Steve Rogers cried.


	2. Chapter 1: Slap

_October 3, 1924_

"Nobody picks on my little brother but me!"

The sound of skin contacting skin hung in the air. No one else heard it. It wasn't loud enough to reach the open windows of any neighbors or draw the attention of passersby. The noise seemed to reverberate only far enough to hit the ears of the small cluster of three children at the bottom of the stairs, but for them the noise echoed like a clap of thunder.

Eleanor Rogers was in no mood for the scene standing before her.

Eleanor made a point not to miss school. Of course, Eleanor was one of those odd children who thought every day in school was fun, but she never liked being absent even when it wasn't. She trekked to and from her bedroom to Ms. Mason's second grade classroom, rain or shine, hot or cold, alone or not; and more often than not she was alone.

Steve Rogers skipped as many days of school as he attended. Not because Steve wanted to, most of the time Steve was just as upset as Eleanor when he couldn't go to school. Most days, though, he was just too sick or weak to slog down the road, and Eleanor made it her mission that she would not let him fall behind. Every day she went to school on her own, Eleanor would rush home with books Ms. Mason let her take from the classroom and teach her brother everything he'd missed, which was a lot.

Worse, though, were the times Steve went and Eleanor stayed home. Eleanor wasn't nearly as unhealthy as her brother, so it was rare that Steve ever traveled anywhere without her holding his hand. But in the presence of her ailing brother, it was inevitable that Eleanor occasionally caught something.

She tried, rather desperately, to insist to their mother that Steve shouldn't be allowed to go to school without her, but Sarah Rogers only ever insisted that going outside and getting away from their shared room and away from his coughing sister would do Steve good.

Eleanor wasn't really worried about getting Steve sick again or keeping him out of the sun. She was concerned about the people around town.

Eleanor's presence did not stop all of the bullying, not by a mile. Though, Michael, in particular, seemed to hesitate picking on Steve when Eleanor was at his side, and none of the group would steal the coins their mom gave Steve when Eleanor was around. It was far worse when she wasn't there to help him.

Yesterday, Steve had come home without his socks and without his favorite drawing pencil.

Steve said nothing about it, not wanting to worry his mother or Eleanor, but Eleanor had run across the road to interrogate their neighbor Sadie on her way out that Wednesday morning.

Sadie told her that, at the beginning of the week, a new boy named Gilbert had showed up in their class. He was even taller than Michael and bigger than Gerald, and he'd instantly singled out Steve.

Eleanor wanted Steve to stay home with her. By the time she got back across the street, he was already out of sight, and Eleanor resigned herself to sitting on the bottom step. Her mind whirled with all the horrors this new pest, this faceless Gilbert, was going to inflict.

Michael had ruined Steve's shirt with paint once when Eleanor had a cold. Gerald had stuffed Steve in the school's trash can after Eleanor was sent home with pink eye. Jack even broke Steve's nose once after slamming into the side of the schoolhouse while Eleanor was distracted talking to a teacher. For some reason, Eleanor had it in her mind that Gilbert would be worse.

Steve never backed down from a fight, so getting beat up now and then when Eleanor wasn't there to break things up was inevitable. But never, never in her life, had Eleanor seen or even imagined one of the boys having the nerve to show up at their door.

Her spindly finger poked into the boy's bony chest with just enough force to send the latter teetering backwards on his heels to keep his balance.

"If you want to mess with him, then I promise I will mess with you."

Steve was walking with his right leg bent at the knee, keeping all his weight around the new kid's shoulders. As his support went on the backfoot, Steve could feel his legs about to give out under him, and he unwrapped his arm from the other boy to catch the stair railing.

"You keep your hands off him, mister." As she advanced, Eleanor looked about ready to draw back her arm for another strike.

Steve launched forward and grabbed his sister's wrist before she could do any more damage. "Eleanor, don't."

"Steve," Eleanor turned her fuming expression on him, "I won't just let them do this to you."

"James didn't do anything to me, Eleanor."

She froze. Eleanor's eyes flitted up to the unknown boy in front of her. James, not Gilbert, was rubbing his cheek where a faint red mark resembling the shape of Eleanor's tiny hand was already starting to form. "But Sadie said…"

"Gilbert, I know, he was there today. He tried to steal the money Mom gave me to buy a new pencil. James punched him." Steve explained. "I tripped and twisted my ankle trying to push Michael away. James was just walking me home."

Eleanor eyed James for a moment. It wouldn't be above Steve to tell her some story that would stop her from getting in trouble for him, but she could always tell when Steve was lying. He wasn't very good at it.

"I slapped you," she stated rather dumbly.

"Yes," James rolled his jaw around as if testing that it still opened and closed. His face was only serious for a moment, before it broke out in a grin. "You've got a mean swing. I guess fighting runs in the family."

"Eleanor's a champion at the gym up the street," Steve teased lightly.

"I'm not surprised!" James returned with an easy laugh and a bright smile. Pointing at Steve's back, James waited patiently for Eleanor to move. "I should probably help him."

"Right." Eleanor slipped to the side and let James skirt by.

James didn't seem bothered by being struck. He plucked up Steve like nothing happened, marching up the stairs. The stairs weren't meant to go three wide. They were really only built for one adult to go up at a time, so Eleanor trailed behind the pair, chewing on her bottom lip.

The one time in her life she does something even remotely violent, and she chose the wrong person. It was just that her thoughts had run wild waiting all day to spot her brother, and the idea of one of those boys coming here, to their home, was infuriating. Eleanor never slapped any of Steve's other bullies at school. She always weaseled her way between Steve and his opponent, and often times she would shove them off her brother. Not once, even when she desperately wanted to bite back, had she ever done anything to retaliate.

Eleanor couldn't have done too much damage. James didn't even move that much when she slapped him, only curled his head away from the blow. Poking him had done more, and even that had only actually affected Steve.

"You coming, Eleanor?" Steve called back over his shoulder as James assisted him up.

"Right," Eleanor repeated and rushed after them, stumbling as she took the climb two steps at a time to catch up.

James waited on the landing for Eleanor, and the young girl rushed around to catch the door. Eleanor went through first, rushing across the floor to open the bedroom door, and James shuffled along behind with Steve in tow.

The apartment was well cared for, but incredibly small. The kitchen was in the living room along the wall across from the door and consisted only of two wood cabinets on either side of a stove. Next to the nearer cabinet was a table with four small stools. They sat so close to the small couch in the living space that two of the angled legs on the closest stool actually rested under the gap between the couch and the floor.

There wasn't much else to the room, but a doll lying on the cushions, a stack of cards sitting on the window sill, a blanket folded on the floor, and a few pictures hanging on the walls made the place feel like a home.

Eleanor ducked her head around the corner of one of the two doors on the right wall. "Can you bring him in here?"

"Course," James helped Steve over to the bedroom and laid him on the bed Eleanor pointed out.

Without the smaller boy hanging off his arm, James could look around in more detail. The bedroom was clearly one that the two shared, each claiming one side as their own. Two cots were pushed up against opposite walls, making room for a four-drawer dresser underneath the window in the center. They were the only pieces of furniture. The space between the two was otherwise empty, but the ends of both beds were cluttered.

Steve's bed was the one to the left of the door. On the floor at the end of his bed, James could make out papers, covered in all sorts of drawings. There were at least three pads worth littering the floor, and another two pads untouched were pushed into the corner. Some of the better pictures were tacked to the walls, and James was sure that even when he got older he'd never be able to draw anything as well as the scene of the girl sitting in the snow that took pride of place at the center of the wall on Steve's side of the door. It was, very clearly, a portrait of his sister in the park next to the school, and James was sure she must have posed for it with all the detail put onto the paper.

To the right was what James assumed to be Eleanor's bed. Distinguishable by her red sheets, while her brother's were blue. Her bed, unlike her brother's was neatly made and tucked in. A book sitting on her pillow was the only break in the color. It was just one of many books sorted neatly into two stacks at the foot of her bed. They were joined by a jigsaw, already assembled, depicting some castle James had never seen.

"We've not met," James realized he was standing in a stranger's room and turned to Eleanor. "I'm James Barnes. I'm in the class next to yours." He stuck out his hand.

"Eleanor Rogers."

"Call her Nora!" Steve exclaimed.

Eleanor wrinkled her nose and leaned around James to glare at her brother. "That's not nice, Steve."

James thought to himself and suggested, "What about Ellie?"

Eleanor thought for a moment. She liked her name just fine, was proud of it in fact. Her aunt's name was Eleanor, and Aunt Eleanor had died in The War like her father.

Sometimes, Steve would call her Nora to tease her, but no one else ever called her anything but Eleanor. She'd met a girl named Nora once, and when she realized Nora could be its own name she'd adamantly refused being called that by anyone. Eleanor was named after her aunt and no one else.

Ellie was nice though. It was close enough to Eleanor that people would still know that was her name, and it wasn't such a mouthful as saying Eleanor all the time. She still preferred her whole name, but at least it wasn't Nora, or worse Ella.

"Ellie is okay." Eleanor conceded without seeming too enthusiastic. Steve could call her whatever he liked, and she supposed she'd let James call her Ellie for saving him.

"It's nice to meet you, Ellie."

"Nice to meet you."

James awkwardly let his outstretched hand fall by the wayside with a disappointed look, and Eleanor realized too late that he'd wanted to shake hers.

Her mother always shook people's hands, but she'd never known another person her age who did it. Usually it was just hugs or waves.

"Thank you," Eleanor tried to fix her mistake with a smile. "For walking Steve home, the other boys can be mean."

"Do they try to beat you up every day?" James asked, circling back to her brother. He plopped himself on the edge of Steve's bed, only paying attention to avoid sitting on Steve's toes.

"Only when Eleanor's not there," Steve leaned in like he was telling James a secret and said, "they're all scared of her."

"Hey!" Eleanor jumped back and grabbed the pillow off her bed, throwing it across the room at him.

The pillow missed wide, and James only just managed to snag the red fabric before it smacked into his face.

Steve broke into as hearty a guffaw as his feeble lungs could manage, rolling over onto his side with the force, "Twice in one day you've hit James. I thought you'd be nicer to him than me."

Eleanor huffed and put her hands to her hips with a glare that mimicked their mother, though it lacked any of Sarah Rogers' authority or seriousness. Even angry, it was nearly impossible to take Eleanor Rogers seriously. She was far to kind and caring a person; her face was wide eyed with innocence and bright with life.

"Here, let me." James smirked, swinging the pillow around with one hand. It didn't have much force behind it, but Steve still fell over on his back when it hit his chest.

"Thank you," Eleanor beamed, "See. Even James knows you deserved that."

"Eleanor!"

Eleanor lurched for the door at the sound of the voice outside. "Momma!" None of them had heard her come in.

The wide open bedroom door gave a view of the main room as Ms. Rogers came in, juggling three bags of groceries in one arm to free her other to open the door.

James got up to follow Eleanor, each of them rounding the couch to grab a bag.

"Thank you, Steve. Oh!" Ms. Rogers jumped when her vision was freed, and she saw the face of the boy who took the second bag.

"Mom, this is Steve's new friend James!" Eleanor hefted her paper bag up onto the counter. "He helped him home from school. Steve hurt his ankle again."

"Again?" Ms. Rogers shifted the groceries to her hip, looking oddly relieved at the news. "Well, thank you for bringing him home James. I hope it wasn't too much trouble."

"No trouble, ma'am," James set his sack down next to Eleanor's. "But I should head home my mom will worry."

Ms. Rogers nodded. "Well, you're welcome here anytime. We'll have to make you dinner whenever your mother will let you come by."

James nodded. "Yes ma'am."

"Call me Sarah, dear." Ms. Rogers reached out her free hand to ruffle James's hair.

James instinctively went about straightening it as he walked back to the children's room. "I'm just going to say goodbye to Steve."

"Eleanor, show your friend out, please." Ms. Rogers whispered to her daughter.

"Of course, Mom."

Eleanor followed James back to the room in time to hear him asking, "Will you be at school tomorrow?"

Steve had stolen Eleanor's pillow and was propping himself up on both of their cushions against the head of his bed. A book of paper was settled in his lap that Eleanor was pretty sure he'd pulled out from under his mattress because she hadn't actually heard him get up to get one of the ones off the floor.

"I think so."

Pursing her lips, Eleanor looked over her brother's leg, which looked uncomfortable even lying down. "Are you sure?" She announced her presence behind James, drawing both boys' attention, "I'm staying home. Mom won't let me go in tomorrow with how sick I felt this morning."

Steve rolled his eyes and flopped back on his bed. "I never ran away from Michael. I'm not going to run away from Gilbert."

James silently watched the exchange from his spot between them.

Eleanor sighed, resigning herself to Steve's fate, and fled the room.

James gave Steve a quick wave, "I'll see you then," and went after her.

"Don't worry," James spoke low enough that Steve and Ms. Rogers wouldn't hear, "I'll look out for him tomorrow."

Eleanor held open the door and stepped out onto the landing on James's heels. "Thank you," she let the door swing shut behind them. "He won't tell Mom how bad it is, so I have to watch him constantly. They still talk, but at least they don't hurt him when I'm there."

"Of course they don't." James shrugged. "No one wants to make the prettiest girl in school mad."

Eleanor went immediately crimson, made worse by how obvious James clearly thought his statement was. She'd never taken compliments well. Last year, Sadie's older brother had told her her dress was nice, and Eleanor still hadn't talked to him since. "I," She stumbled over the word, not really knowing whether to compliment him in return. "Thank you," she settled on.

"You don't have to keep thanking me." James didn't seem to notice her change in face, but Eleanor supposed that her pile of blonde curls she'd immediately hid her face into had done most of that work. "I hope you feel better soon." James turned to retreat back to the road.

"Oh James!" Standing outside again reminded Eleanor of what she forgot to say, and she launched herself towards the wooden ledge to look down at him.

James stopped halfway down the steps and squinted against the sun to look up at her. "Yes?"

"I'm really sorry for slapping you."

James chuckled, "It's fine. Just remind me to teach you how to throw a punch sometime."

* * *

_October 8, 1924_

James had come back with Steve the very next day and taught Eleanor how to hold her hand in a fist properly. "I have a brother, and we play fight all the time," he'd explained.

The next Monday, when Eleanor finally came back to school, she put her new found knowledge to use.

"Excuse me," She tapped the boy as high up on his shoulder as she could reach.

The unfamiliar face rounded on her, simpering. "Hi there."

"Are you Gilbert?" Eleanor made sure to ask this time.

"Course I am!" Gilbert made the mistake of leaning back against the schoolyard fence, so his height was even with his new conversation. "And who are you?"

"I'm Eleanor Rogers." And she swung.


End file.
